


distinguish need from desire.

by henryclerval



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Emotional Baggage, Explicit Sexual Content, Hand Jobs, M/M, Masturbation, Not Beta Read, Pining, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Stream of Consciousness, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-23
Updated: 2014-04-23
Packaged: 2018-01-20 14:12:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1513433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/henryclerval/pseuds/henryclerval
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Steve,” Bucky wonders if his voice sounds as confident as he doesn’t feel, “what are best friends for if they can’t jerk each other off once in a while?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	distinguish need from desire.

Brooklyn stinks of sweat and piss, the trees thick of pollen to the point where Bucky sneezes three times just on the walk from the corner to their stoop. His collar prickles with needless sweat—his body prepped for the last leg of winter as spring rushes forth unprecedented, unwanted for once. The afternoons are muggy and hot, rendering Bucky’s morning jacket useless as it drapes over his shoulder. 

Each step feels like a mile, and each button on his shirt pops open the closer he gets to the stoop. He barely bites back a grunt each time he needs to lift his leg—skin sticking to the fabric of his pants, and the frost this morning seems lifetimes away with how desperately he wants to shuck off every inch of his clothing. 

And it’s not even that hot out—the sweat is embarrassing, the touch of red on his cheekbones even more so. This heat is nothing compared to the sauna that settles during the summer and still, here he is, trudging up the stairs quietly because he doesn’t even have the strength to raise his feet high enough to make sounds. 

He wonders, idly, as his hand hits the doorknob, whether or not Steve has found solace in the heat. Or if maybe he’s finally sold some of his sketches—doodles—whatever they are, art. He grimaces a little, thinking of how often the latter situation is false, how that Steve’s unobtainable success tends to make him irritable, and how that irritation is probably gonna be inflated because of the heat. 

Bucky rests his hand on the doorknob and braces his forehead against the thin wood of the door. He needs to go in. There’s no other place that he needs to be—work cutting his shifts, he’s got no money to spend on a soda, and he’s not about to go step outside to be knocked over by another lovely waft of Brooklyn in late March. 

And it isn’t like he’s afraid of what’s beyond the door. Maybe Steve isn’t even home at all. It’s still early enough in the morning for him to be shuffling between newspapers and magazines, hocking comics that made he and Bucky giggle late at night. 

There doesn’t seem to be a storm brewing in their apartment anyway. He fiddles with opening the door and it’s even locked, and as Bucky fumbles with his keys his eyebrows nearly touch his hairline. It’s not everyday that he gets the apartment to himself for a few hours. 

He dumps his jacket on the couch and pulls the dress shirt over his head, tossing it to crumple next to the jacket. The walk between the front door and their bedroom door is achingly long, and Bucky has no energy to waste with picking up his shoes after he toes them off, step by step. His journey is dotted with pieces and parts of clothes—a shoe here, his belt there, and Bucky is trying to open his pants with one hand and the door to the bedroom with his other. A nap sounds so good, just peeled out of his clothes as much as modesty allows in the darkest, most cross-breeze-iest part of their shared bedroom. 

Bucky shoves the door open and the huff that had been accompanying it is frozen in his throat—the sweat on his collar freezes, his muscles tighten, and his eyes nearly bulge out of his head; Bucky only had a glimpse of Steve before he recoiled in on himself, curling bird-thin legs up to protect his good sense of decency, and a shout that’s more like a yelp and shriek and a _don’t look!_ more than anything else. 

And for some stupid reason Bucky hesitates before he closes the door in front of him. 

He suddenly feels very warm again. 

He suddenly feels very, very warm. 

Bucky’s heart races, and he becomes aware of every little sound the entire apartment is making—he can hear his pulse in his ears, can hear Steve curse and shift and the scrape of skin on scratchy sheets and the rumples of clothes and Bucky’s hand is still on the doorknob like it’s glued there. Like he’s been welded to the opportunity of opening the door again and seeing Steve in, apparently, the throes of self-love. 

His attempts to make the situation funny aren’t helping. It somehow makes his ears hotter and his eyes bigger and his heart just drum on and on and this shouldn’t be a matter of will-he-won’t-he. This is a matter of making a joke at Steve’s expense and maybe thinking about a ‘sock on the door’ policy. Maybe. 

Or maybe it’s Bucky’s chance to ease the door open—as he does, his breath so trapped in his lungs it hurts—and look inside again, because for as much time as he has spent with Steve and has accidentally walked in on nudity, this shouldn’t bother him as heavily as it does. It shouldn’t spur him on to want to see the curve of Steve’s barely-there calves and thighs, the split-second glimpse he got of Steve’s arm flexing as he worked himself. 

Steve stares at him from the bed, where he’s almost fully, uncomfortably, dressed—undershirt wrinkled and briefs hanging halfway off his hip as he stops with pants halfway up his legs. 

Steve’s face is unbearably red and Bucky can see where his hands twitch to push his comb over back into place. 

“You have fun?” Is not what Bucky wants to say but it’s there and faltered and the flash of burning anger in Steve’s face isn’t as funny as Bucky wants it to be. 

“If you were gonna be home early you should’ve let me know,” Steve gripes out, and now that the silence is broken he finds the strength to pull up his pants the rest of the way. 

But it hasn’t passed yet for Bucky, and his mouth feels dry as he steps a little closer, a little more into the room. He can see the flush still creeping along Steve’s shoulders, up his neck, and Steve’s attempts to hide what he’d been doing underneath layers of clothes is failing miserably. So miserably it pushes Bucky to go closer, and Steve stops what he’s doing to look up at him—not directly, not even close, just a passing glance before he looks all around the ceiling and doorframe that’s just over Bucky’s shoulder. 

“Buck, what are you doing?” Steve mumbles out, hands suddenly incapable of doing buttons as he stares down at them, which is the wrong thing to ask Bucky because Bucky has no idea what he’s doing. He’s only got the vaguest idea, fleeting impulses that take him all the way to where Steve is and to try to convey these impulses, Bucky wants to just kiss him and touch him and allow a carefully constructed wall to crack some. 

Instead he puts his hands on Steve’s shoulders like he’s gonna to coach him through a football game. 

“Listen, Steve,” Where is this coming from? “We’re gonna get through this. We’re gonna get you through this.” 

Silence. 

“What?” The flabbergasted look on Steve’s face is perfect, as it mutates into something on which Bucky can’t put his finger. “What are you even talking about?” 

“I’ve got your back, always have, right?” Bucky is urging him back onto the bed—not pushing, not handling, he’s not manipulating the way that Steve moves an it’s enough to take the air out of Bucky’s lungs again. Steve nods and Bucky follows. “We been through a lot of shit, and I’ve always got you.” 

“There’s a difference between spotting me a few cents for the bus and—“ Steve hesitates, licks his lips, the red has never left his face but it’s back in the prettiest, most uneven way. “—and, y’know.” 

“Steve,” Bucky wonders if his voice sounds as confident as he doesn’t feel, “what are best friends for if they can’t jerk each other off once in a while?”

There must’ve been magic in those words, because Steve’s face manages to get redder before he nods and Bucky’s heart is about to leap out of his chest. “Yeah,” Steve’s mumbling now, fidgeting a little, and wipes his hands on his pants. “Uh, how—how should I—?”

“C’m’ere,” Bucky gestures more than talks, and Steve is so fast to respond that it almost surprises him. He turns Steve, takes Steve by the armful, and pulls that bony back up against his chest and seats him on his lap. “See? Nothin’ to it,” Bucky’s mumbling too, his heart going too fast, and it dawns on him—

For all his talk he can’t seem to make his hands work properly. The awful knot that started in his stomach as wound its way into his chest, making his arms flushed and his mouth twist as the cotton scrapes against his bare chest. How many times had they sit like this before, how many times had Bucky’s imagination wandered off before he could leash it back down? 

Steve is real and warm and fidgeting, taking Bucky’s hand and guiding it to where his pants remain unbuttoned. Steve is real and solid and when Bucky manages to wriggle Steve’s pants down just enough, they both shiver when Bucky wraps his hand around Steve’s dick. 

This, most certainly, is not the nap that Bucky had anticipated. He had come home wanting nothing more than to peel out of his clothes and be dead to the world for a few hours; now he’s here, a lapful of his best friend trying to control his breathing as he grips and flexes his hands on Bucky’s thighs. He’s pushing up Steve’s shirt with his other hand, pushing his face into Steve’s shoulder, concentrating more on keeping himself quiet than he is on getting Steve off as fast as possible—it’s not like he doesn’t know what he’s doing, the movements are all the same, it’s just the shape of it that differs. 

Bucky wonders if he’s gonna set Steve’s shirt on fire with how hot his face feels, with how much he wants to kiss that bony clavicle and make the journey from shoulder up to Steve’s jaw, Steve’s cheek, and earn himself a place on those lips. He wants to—he wants to so badly, and he channels that into working Steve’s prick; all that pent up desire goes into wringing out another gasp, another choke, for the way that Steve rolls his hips just barely to meet Bucky’s fist. 

And Bucky wouldn’t even notice, honest, those tiny ruts into his hand, had it not been for the way that he shifts down, too, the most minute movement against his own dick that somehow is very, very obvious to him. He bites his tongue, brow knitting as he puts all of his efforts into not grinding up against Steve. This isn’t the time to push his luck. He needs to stick to the rules of—

What, exactly, are the rules of masturbating your best friend? 

Bucky mouths against Steve’s shoulder—it’s the only thing he can allow himself, he needs another outlet for this nervous energy that’s spurred on with each grunt. And as Bucky spreads his hand across Steve’s chest—up and down, petting his ribcage, down to the small folds of the little belly fat that Steve manages when he’s starting to curl in on himself—Steve shudders and shakes, fingers and nails finding their way into the inner of Bucky’s thighs. 

“Buck—“ Steve’s choking on his words, and maybe it’s for show. Maybe all those sounds and breaths and staring with his mouth slack from where Bucky’s hand is doing all the work and then some—not that he’s stealing glances at Steve’s reaction when he rolls his head back—because Bucky’s heard him get off before. It’s always so quiet and hushed and here, even if it’s not that much louder—it’s only a handjob—it’s not reserved, it’s Steve’s hips getting jerky as they flash up into Bucky’s fist and roll down against Bucky’s groin. 

“Buck—“ Steve’s repeating himself, hiccupping over the words. “I gotta—“ 

Bucky cuts him off with a nod against his shoulder. He doesn’t think he would survive this ordeal if he heard Steve finish that sentence. 

Steve snaps his hips up a few times, punctuated by gasps and finally, finally, lolls his head back and comes on his stomach, so quiet that Bucky feels it more than he hears it—the roll of flutter that ripples through the muscles of Steve’s stomach, feeling some of the come smear against his hand as he squeezes the last bits of orgasm from him. Bucky can’t look, his face buried in Steve’s shoulder. 

It takes all of his willpower and then some not to just rut up against Steve’s ass those few times to get himself to come; he’s so achingly close, he doesn’t think he’s ever been this hard in his life. It’s not until Steve gasps out for breath—coming down from the shock—and startles Bucky does he realize just how focused he’d been on not moving. At all. 

“See?” Bucky’s voice finally matches his confidence: nonexistent. “Nothing to it.” He’s not even convincing himself at this point, sliding his hand off Steve’s prick to ignore the grunt of protest in front of him and wipe it on the sheets.

“What about you?” Steve’s quiet and breathy and everything that he’s so normally not that the sound rings around in Bucky’s ears for a while. 

“What about me?” 

How Steve is spry and moving with his pants halfway down his thighs is beyond Bucky, but Steve is turned around and facing him and Bucky looks away like his life depends on it. “Y’know,” Steve presses a hand to Bucky’s crotch, and Bucky gets a glimpse of that splotchy red being fully coated in. “It takes two to tango and all that crap.”

No, there’s an obligation in that, and Bucky’s going to have an aneurism with how much he wants but how little he’ll allow himself. “Nah, you don’t gotta do anything, okay?” He tries at a grin, and it’s all crooked at the sides where he gets distracted by the mess that peeks out underneath the curtain of Steve’s rumpled shirt. 

“Well you said,” and Steve presses a little more firmly against Bucky’s prick, and Steve is suddenly, amazingly, much more persuasive. “What are friends for, right?”


End file.
